From Driving to Stripping

Ever since Katie brought Ryan into the group, he has instantly become one of our best friends. We pretty much hang out with him every day and invited him to all of our crazy activities (trust me, there have been a LOT more than what's been seen here on this blog). In fact we all take credit in knowing that we brought out Ryan's crazy side... and it's not going away.

The night before Toy Story 3 was to be released to the world, The Workplace decided to put on a party giving us all the chance to see the movie before anyone else. All four of us were working that day, however Ryan and myself clocked off before Paige and Katie. I suggested that we hang out for the next few hours, and next thing I know me and Ryan are driving around all of Utah County just talking. It's getting to be about 10pm -two hours before the movie- when I suggest that we go to Starbucks -The Palace of the Dead Birthday Cake- so I could get something to keep me up for the movie. Ryan agreed, so we both went in to order.

Me and Ryan have this routine fight that we do every time he and I go out to eat; we fight over who pays. I insisted that I pay for both of us, to which Ryan disagreed. After professional and kind shoutings from my mouth of "I WILL CUT YOU!" and "YOU WHORE, LET ME PAY!!!!!!" I gave up. I stood at the counter, ordered my drink, paid, and thought of a way to pay back Ryan. I instantly remembered the remaining cash in my wallet. Right after Ryan paid, I took out a five dollar bill and handed it to Ryan. He shouted "NO!" and shoved the money back at me.

Knowing Ryan would never accept the money, I thought of the next best thing. Next thing I know I'm jumping at Ryan, pulling on his collar, and throwing money down his shirt. Ryan screamed while trying to catch the money that I knew he would throw back at me. However, he was struggling a little bit. Finally he just shouted, in this public coffee shop, in front of the four employees and the ten or so customers. The words shouted and echoed across the halls: "GAH! Tanner, you make me feel like a stripper!!!"

I lost it. I just bust up laughing at the most awkward, yet the most hilarious words I have ever heard come out of that kid's mouth. I could feel the eyes of everyone in that building staring right at us, but I didn't even care. I'm sure all anyone saw as a sixteen year old male stripper and his eighteen year old pimp rolling on the floor.

Moments like these

The Off-Roading Experience Part 3: Considering The State Of Your Glovebox

Like I mentioned earlier, these posts aren't in chronological order. Which is partially why we haven't heard anything of Tanner or Ryan yet. See, Katie and I started out the group - so a lot of our traditions began with just me and her. I introduced her to Tanner and he fell into the group and then Ryan got hired at the Megaplex - The Workplace - and Katie brought him into the group. It will be one more post before we hear from The Voice of Reason, just for the sake of continuing the Off-Roading saga.
Katie, Ryan and I (Tanner was in San Francisco) decided to go to the temple in South Jordan. If you ever come with us, it is customary for Katie to collect the cell phones in the car and methodically stuff them in the glove box. We went in and came out, heading back to Denton - The Car. I unlocked the door and Katie assumed her position in shotgun while Ryan battled the Anger-Management Door to get into the back seat. Once we're all in and buckled Katie grabs the handle to the glove box and pulls to free our phones from their dismal prison. Since we were in Denton - The Car - the handle pops off, never to work again.
"Uh. . . Paige?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"I don't think we'll be able to get to our phones in the near future."
"WHAT?!?" cried Ryan from his seat in the back. "I need my phone."
"Here, lemme try this," Katie said grabbing the keys from me and proceeding to jab them into the gaping hole left behind by the handle.
Luckily, the glove box fell open, and Katie redistributed our phones and closed it again.
"Oh thank goodness," Ryan said, flipping it open instantly. "If it wasn't going to open I was gonna kill it."
I shot him a pointed look through the rear view mirror.
"Not that I would ever kill Denton (-The Car -)," he amended quickly. "I love Denton (-The Car.)"
"Thank you," I said, smiling.
In the mean time, Katie was trying, and failing, to reopen the glove box.
"Is there anything important in here?" she asked.
"Only my proof of insurance and registration," I said. Those are probably the two most important documents you'll ever have in your car, period. They are two of the three things cops will ask for when they pull you over - believe me, I would know. I'm gonna say that I've got experience and leave it at that.
Katie, having been present for most of this 'experience,' eyed me, "You're going to have to be careful, Paige, considering the state of your glove box."
Even though I took that statement completely seriously, I cracked up, "Considering the sate of my glove box, really?"
"Yeah, no speeding," she said, sounding like my favorite broken record.
"What about Suncrest?" I asked, my hopes and dreams were suddenly crushed.
"Yeah," said Ryan, backing me up, "Suncrest is fun when Paige drives."
"You can still do Suncrest," she conceded, extremely reluctantly.
You see, on my side of the mountain, the road up and over Suncrest isn't monitored by the police - and, if you're too thick to pick it up, I like to go fast - REALLY fast. So, that is the one road I can really let loose on. (My record up is three minutes. Down? One minute and fifty seconds.)
I carefully drove towards the mountain, already excited to be going down the next side. Katie kept her diligent eye on the speedometer interjecting with, 'Paige, glove box,' when I got tired of holding up my lead foot. I had the feeling these would soon become the three words most spoken within the confines of my car.
"I still haven't been Off-Roading with you guys," Ryan commented from the back seat. "It sounds like SO much fun."
Katie and I made eye contact and cracked up (see The Off-Roading Experience Parts 1&2.)
"It has to be spontaneous," Katie said, explaining our tradition.
"But we didn't plan it, did we?" Ryan asked, suddenly hopeful.
"Yeah, I guess," she replied, "but we have to pass a dirt road. Hence the 'Off-Roading' part."
"Well, we should still explore," Ryan said, "that's how you guys started out on the other ones."
Katie screamed as I pulled a hard turn, we'd reached the top of the mountain.
"What?" I asked, "We've done this how many times now?"
"Not LATELY," Katie said. "You up for exploring?"
"What else would we do?"
"Awesome," she said concentrating on the road (along with GPS, she plays the part of radar for cops and living things.)
"Lets go down that road," Katie said, pointing to our right, "I don't know where it goes."
Words I never expected from a GPS, but hey.
"Okay," I said, hitting my blinker and pulling another scream from Katie's lungs.
We came to a dead end, "Well, that was worthless," Ryan said.
"Tell that to the GPS," I replied, pulling a U-turn.
"I just wanted to see where it went," Katie said as I pulled up to the road down the mountain. She looked a head and instantly pointed, "That road has cones on it, lets go."
I questioned her sanity - not for the first time, I might add.
"Usually, cones mean stay off," I said, noticing how Ryan's eyes swiveled between us in the rear view mirror.
"Ah, come on!"
For some reason, I gave in. My foot hit the floor and we zoomed across the street and past the cones at 50 miles an hour. We're just cruising down this road when suddenly. . .

CA-CHUNK!!!

I screamed. Katie screamed. Ryan screamed. There was a lot of screaming. I instantly rounded on Katie.

"This is your fault!"

"No, its not!" she said. "You had the choice to come down this road!"

"But you told me to!"

"You still could've chosen not to go down it," she said. "It's not my fault you hit the pot-hole."

"I blame you," I said as we came to the end of the road.

"Another dead end? Come on!" Ryan said from the back seat.

"We'll find another road," I reassured him, turning the car around.

We came back to the road that went down the mountain and I turned on my left blinker.

click-a, click-a, click-a

"Great," I said, recognizing the problem immediately. "It broke again."

"Your blinker?" asked Ryan, the closet mechanic.

"Does that sound regular to you?" I asked.

He just laughed.

"I blame you," I said to Katie, as I pulled back onto the street and began speeding down the road.

"You didn't have to go down the road," she said in the classic 'I told you so' tone.

"It's still your fault," I said, stepping on the break now that we were getting to the monitored road.

"Oh, look, Paige!" Katie said, pointing to our right. "A trail!"

"YES!" cried Ryan from the back, sitting up a little straighter.

"Is it marked at all?" I asked (see The Off-Roading Experience Part 1).

Katie laughed, "No, come on! Lets see where it goes!"

I wondered if I'd ever think through the things she tells me to do be for I did them as I pulled on to the trail. It was pretty open until we came to a turn, then there was a hill on our right and trees on the left. The trees cleared out and we were suddenly headed for a big group of people. They had a trailer an all of this equipment set up.

"What the photo shoot?" Ryan asked from the back as the guy that seemed to be in charge came up to my window.

"We got lost," Katie muttered as I rolled down the window.

"Hey, watcha guys doing?" the guy asked, eyeing our temple clothes.

"We just wanted to see where this trail went," I said, forgoing the fall back. "Can we get past here?"

"It just wraps around the mountain," he said, looking back at the group of people he came from. "If you go around that way (pointing left) you should be able to pass us."

"Sweet, thanks," I said.

"Thank you," Katie said.

I rolled up the window as he walked away and as soon as we were all far enough away we all cracked up.

"Let's try to find another way out," I said.

"But I like interrupting the photo shoot," Katie said.

I just rolled my eyes and followed the trail further. When we came to a fork in the road, Katie guided us down the one that went up. Denton - The Car - bounced and rumbled along to the next fork where, again, Katie guided us up. This one was steeper, and rockier, so I put my faith in my front wheel drive and put the pedal to the metal. Up, up, up, we went, Denton - The Car - inched sluggishly up the hill. It got to the point where I was beginning to doubt Denton - The Car - would make it any further - and that never happens.

"Maybe we should turn around the next chance we get," I suggested.

"I agree," said Katie.

"Yeah, I wanna play the Killer Bunnies," Ryan said.

So, as soon as the edges of the trail cleared up I pulled off of the trail to turn around and we began our hesitant decent. Katie and Ryan were on the edge of our seats as I slowly let off the break, only to slam my foot back down again seconds later. We went along like this until we got to the particularly curvy and rocky section of that trail. I had to find a good balance because I would have to step on the gas to get over some of the rocks, but I had to break to get the rest of my car over them. I inched forward and suddenly my car began rocking back and forth.

Katie screamed.

"I don't think all of your wheels are on the ground," Ryan said.

I opened the door to check my side, both wheels were down. Satisfied, I slammed the door and carefully let up on the breaks. When my car teetered even more dangerously, I stopped.

"Um," said Ryan, his door open, "the wheels aren't on the ground here."

I took a deep breath, and decided to try the other side of the trail. I pulled the gearshift into reverse and then let up on the break and pushed the gas simultaneously. You could cut the tension in the car with a knife I swear. Katie and Ryan were both on the edge of their seats, watching my every move. No pressure, right?

We lurched forward, and Katie gripped her car handle and Ryan started muttering under his breath. There was a moment of suspension, and we were back on the road, rumbling back towards the photo shoot we'd previously interrupted.

"Look for another way to a paved road," I commanded my passengers. "We are not going through that photo shoot, or whatever it was, again."

We rumbled forward and then I screamed and pointed.

"What?" Katie and Ryan cried.

"A road!" I joyously replied.

"Paige, it doesn't connect," Katie said, Ryan was looking at me apprehensively like he already knew what I had in mind.

"All that's between us and the road is a bunch of sage brush," I said. "Don't worry we'll make it."

Before either of them could say anything else I sped off, crashing through the sage brush plants whose lives would never be the same. We made contact with the paved road and I breathed freely again. I eyed Ryan in the rear view mirror, asking the question with my eyes.

"THAT ROCKED!" he yelled.

Katie and I laughed, and we continued down the road like nothing had happened.

Moments Like These

The Off-Roading Experience Part 2: Are we. . . ?

Okay, Katie and I end up doing this a lot. Hence the 'Part 2' and the up-coming 'Part 3' and the potential 'Part 4.'

Pre-story: Katie's mom is the best second grade teacher you'll ever come across. Her principal got a better job that opened up at a brand-new school - which came with the added bonus of choosing his two favorite teachers to join him. All of the teachers at his current school were able to submit applications to join him, and from those he choose who came and who stayed. Katie's mom never sent in an application but the principal practically begged her to come - on his hands and knees - so she accepted. Which really annoyed our nemesis' mother - which is a completely different story for a completely different time.

This particular day, we were trying to find her mom's new school. Somewhere along the way, we made a wrong tun and ended up at the foot of a dirt road. Now, being me and Katie, we instantly decided to see where it went. As we pulled up closer we saw this sign:

NO hiking

NO mountain biking

NO hunting

I looked at Katie, "Kate, are we hiking?"

She smiled her own special plotting smile, "No, Paige, we are not."

"Mountain biking?"

"Nope."

"What about hunting?"

"Never," she laughed.

"Well then. . ."

"ONWARD!!" she cried pointing down the trail.

After being on the trail for a couple of minutes, we came around a corner and started seeing trucks and those little business buildings that look like the front office of the Island Park, Idaho dump. I'd been thinking about our last excursion (see 'The Off-Roading Experience Part 1: Trails), and these signs of civilization reminded me of the legal issues that could come up.

"Uh, Katie?" I asked as innocently as possible, "What do we say if we get caught?"

"We got lost," she said - that trademark 'plotter's smile' stretching across her face.

"Really? That's all you've got?"

"Paige," she said in her sarcastic explanation accent, "we're two teenage girls, in a piece of crap car (she patted Denton's - The Car - door endearingly as she said this). It's all we need."

Moments Like These

The Off-Roading Experience Part 1: Trails

Katie and I practically live together - her mother feeds me like one of her own and my mother refers to her as 'my fifth child.' We know each other so well that we can tell how the others day has been with one look. This fateful night, we were both extremely pissed off - for reasons that will never be discussed on this blog - so Katie decided that we should just drive around - hence the title: 'The Plotter'. Harmless suggestion, right? We ended up behind Lone Peak High School, and we drove past this road neither of us had ever been down.
"Let's see where it goes," she said.
"Are you gonna be able to get us out of here," I asked.
"Paige," she said in that sarcastic plotting voice that I knew all too well, "have I ever gotten us lost before?"
I didn't even need to answer, there was a very legitimate reason I called her Kate-Kate. So I turned, we were both on the edge of our seats, squinting out into the darkness that even my brights wouldn't illuminate. The paved road curved around the back of our school and then came to a fork - each option a dirt trail.
"Go right," Katie said.
"I'm not sure Denton(- The Car-) can take this, Kate," I said.
She slapped her door in an endearing fashion, "Paige, it is true, Denton has seen many things - but if they didn't kill him, this definitely won't."
For some psychotic reason, that made sense to me so I pulled forward to continue on down the right trail. The car rumbled on down the trail and I sent a prayer up to the god of crappy cars that mine would be able to pull through this in just as many bent pieces as it started in. We came to this clearing, it was probably a circular fifty feet of dirt that had two other trails coming from it.
"That one," Katie said, pointing to the one on the left.
"Why?"
"We went right last time," she said simply.
I shrugged and followed her directions. We ended up on this extremely narrow trail that went on for quite a while. Just when I was thinking it would never end, a sign appeared in the middle of the road:

ROAD CLOSED

Really? I thought, we've been going down this road for at least five minutes and you put the ROAD CLOSED sign here? I looked around us - to my left, the road just dropped of to this ten foot cliff, to the right, it went up a ten foot cliff that was littered with trees and boulders of various sizes.

"What am I supposed to do now, genius?" I asked, the sarcasm was hard to miss.

"I just told you to turn. Ultimately, you had the choice, this is your fault," she said.

I reminded myself to invest in a new GPS system.

I considered my choices again and decided to try backing up the hill and doing some kind of twisted three-point type turns because if we went down the hill no one knows where they would have found Katie and I's skeletons wrapped in Denton's - The Car - crushed body. Crunch, crunch, grittle, crunch, grittle, crunch, thump - that is what it sounded like as my car slowly ascended the slope hitting millions of little pebbles and gigantic rocks whose lives would never bee the same. There was an epic CRUNCH and my car refused to go any farther, seeing as it had high centered on the biggest boulder we'd seen yet.

Katie screamed, scaring the crud out of me, let me tell you. I smacked her on the arm and took a deep breath to focus my mind - they don't call me The Driver for nothing. I put both of my feet on the break pedal and pushed as far down as it would go before putting my car into drive. We descended slower than the plague slightly turning all the while so that we could go back down the narrow trail. Beads of sweat slid down my forehead and Katie clutched the handle of her door as if it were her only chance to get out of this alive.

We made it back onto the road safely, both out of breath and totally high off the thrill. We came to the fork, and I couldn't remember which way was out so I looked to Katie.

"That way," she pointed, down the other trail.

"Katie," I said, half exasperated, half excited, "wasn't that just enough."

"I want to see where it goes, Paigey," she said still pointing while she bounced.

"I swear, you're going to be the death of me," I muttered and against my better judgement, turned the way she pointed.

This trail was, if at all possible scarier. Tall ominous weeds swayed in the slight breeze on both sides of us, their pale yellow color shining in the glare of my headlights. When the radio started playing 'No Good Deed' from Wicked, we both got seriously freaked out, so we had to change the song to one of the undeniable classics - "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" by Relient K. The music calmed us down slightly and we slowly continued, following the trail that insisted on twisting and turning mysteriously for the next fifteen minutes. Finally, though, we randomly came to a paved road. Somehow, this freaked me out more than the trail we had just braved. The road was wide enough to have a median in it - which really confused me, because as far as I know we were still back behind Lone Peak.

After looking in each direction about fifty times, I tentatively pulled forward and took Katie's suggested right. I glanced back towards the trail we'd just left, trying to remember it in case I decided I wanted to go back and saw something that made me laugh so hard I had to put the car in park.

"Uh. . . Paige?"

"Look. . .at. . .the. . .sign," I gasped between bouts of laughter.

She turned around and then cracked up with me.

"Oh my gosh," she said. "We've been breaking the law for the past hour, haven't we?"

There was a sign at the head of that trail that said "Alpine Trails - Property of Alpine City."

"There's a law against driving on city trails?" I demanded, suddenly panicked.

"Just drive, Paige," she said, shaking her head. "If you turn left at the end of this road you'll be on the road to your house."

I just nodded and obeyed, still shaking from laughter.

Moments Like These

It's All Because of the Sewing Kit

First off, these memories are not in chronological order. This one just comes first because it's where we got our slogan that pretty much describes everything else that has ever happened in three words: Moments Like These.
Katie's older sister, Kimmy - Girlfriend of 'Spoon Me' - called late one stormy evening, while we were making our merry way home from Ryan's humble abode. The conversation went something like this:
Katie: Hey Kimmy, what's up?
Kimmy: Do you have a sewing needle?
Katie: Why would I have a sewing needle?
Paige (off to the side): I could probably find one if she needs it.
Kimmy: I just need one to finish putting these extensions together.
Katie: Paige says she can probably find one, we were gonna stop by her house to find my pants anyway.
Kimmy: Find your pants?
Katie: They went missing. We'll see if we can find your needle.
Kimmy: Thank you so much, Katie. 'Kay baby, see ya later.
Katie: Bye.
So we continued on to my house, with a whole new purpose. Not only did we have to find Katie's pants - this will be explained by a later post - we now had to find Kimmy a sewing needle - all in time for Katie to get home for school in the morning.
I said we'd probably be able to find a needle at my house because my dad - the Traveler - travels a lot. He's racked up about a million frequent flier points and another million Hilton Honors points. He also has quite a collection of all the hotel merchandise you could think of: shampoo's, conditioner's, pens, pads of paper, soaps, hand lotion, mouthwash, shower caps, Q-tips, cotton balls, and sewing kits. He has them stashed all over his closet in these 'super secret' places that I found when we moved into the house - so before we went hunting for Katie's pants, I dragged her into his closet.
Upon entering said closet, we saw most of the Hotel merchandise mentioned above sorted into little Tupperware containers. We searched through the containers in vain, there were no sewing kits to be found. Looking around the closet, though, it wasn't hard to spot the next hiding spot - a gigantic pool bag and a gigantic Banana Republic bag up on top of his shelves. Being no taller than your average floor lamp, I had to jump to snag the bottom of said bags to get them off the shelves.
The bags fell and gallons upon gallons of shampoo, conditioner, etc. cascaded upon us - a few of the bottles exploding on impact. We searched through the pile, 4 oz. bottle by 4 oz. bottle, and there were no sewing kits, so we had to pile them all back into the pool bag and awkwardly stuff them into the now mostly destroyed Banana Republic bag. Once we'd shoved them off to the side, we exited the closet to search his next 'secret place' - the bathroom drawers.
The first one just had everyday bathroom stuff in it, and the second was much the same. When we got down to the third one, we struck gold. There were some more Q-tips, a couple of cotton balls, a bag of dog treats, and about five sewing kits.
We pocketed two of them, just in case, and went on to search for Katie's pants. About fifteen minutes later we were back in my car, headed to deliver the sewing kits to Kimmy. An odd scent reached my nose.
"Katie, I smell like shampoo," I complained.
She just laughed, "That is not something I ever expected to hear you say - especially at this time of night."
I glanced at the clock which read 11:50, and started cracking up all over again.
"It's moments like these. . . " I said, trailing off into more rambunctious laughter.
"Oh, Paige," she said, pushing the door to her sleeping house open.

Moments Like These

Moments Like These

In life, you meet many different people. People that you get along with, people that you want to stab in the back, people that you just stay away from, and people you just fall in love with. These are the people I fell in love with:
Katie - The Plotter
Tanner - The Voice of Reason
Ryan - The Comic Relief
I'm Paige - the Driver - and I've decided to catalogue our adventures together in this one memoir - because believe me they're worth remembering.

Moments like these just can't be forgotten.